From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Sep 15 21:14:01 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id VAA19422 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 21:14:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from obie.softweyr.ml.org ([199.104.124.49]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id VAA19414 for ; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 21:13:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from wes@localhost) by obie.softweyr.ml.org (8.7.5/8.6.12) id WAA00410; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 22:15:40 -0600 (MDT) Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 22:15:40 -0600 (MDT) Message-Id: <199709160415.WAA00410@obie.softweyr.ml.org> From: Wes Peters To: The Classiest Man Alive CC: chat@freebsd.org Subject: language choices on FreeBSD In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.32.19970914222521.009dbad0@cybercom.net> References: <398.874278327@time.cdrom.com> <3.0.3.32.19970914222521.009dbad0@cybercom.net> Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk The Classiest Man Alive writes: > Is there anybody out there using FreeBSD as a platform for FORTRAN? What > languages are people programming in out there on FreeBSD? (Just out of > curiosity.) Well, not currently, but I *did* once port a Fortran program to 386BSD. Back at Weber State, they had once acquired a satellite tracking program from NORAD; as my senior project I modified it to track the University's satellite NUSAT-1 and to run on the Harris 100 minicomputer owned by the electronics department. A number of years later, while fooling around with some friends at Weber, Terry Lambert showed my a system they had running 386BSD. I browbeat him into giving me an account on it so I could login over the network; this started my introduction to 386BSD (I was an 'anonymous' user starting at about 0.2 patchkit), then NetBSD, and finally FreeBSD. When I discovered f2c, I dug up my old satellite tracking program source code from my System V/AT at home and ported it again, called a friend who was working on Webersat and got the orbit info for NUSAT-2. That night, I went into the mountains with my binoculars, and sure enough, there was NUSAT-2 right on schedule. Talk about portability: the original ran on S/360, then Harris H/100, VAX/VMS somewhere along the way, SVR2, and finally 4.3 BSD. Fortran is dead, but it's still kicking. I've done object-oriented graphics programs in Fortran, using Oracle as an object data store. A reasonably good Fortran compiler with strong links to the C/C++ compiler is an asset for any UNIX system, even today. -- "Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?" Wes Peters Softweyr LLC http://www.xmission.com/~softweyr softweyr@xmission.com